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Walking in to bat at number five against West Indies, Morgan smashed four fours and five sixes in his unbeaten 71 off 36 balls. -Photo by Reuters

KANDY: England captain Stuart Broad has ruled out promoting Eoin Morgan up the batting order saying that the left-hander's unorthodox batting is more suited to the middle overs.

Walking in to bat at number five against West Indies, Morgan smashed four fours and five sixes in his unbeaten 71 off 36 balls, but England still fell 15 runs behind in their first Super Eight match of the World Twenty20 on Thursday.

Morgan's pyrotechnics convinced many that he should bat higher but Broad felt England needed the batsman's skills more in the later overs.

“Morgan's game is suited to finding the boundaries when the fielders are back. It's an amazing skill which not everyone has,” Broad told reporters on Friday.

“He's not overly suited to piercing the infield so the risk-reward for someone so valuable to the team may be too high for him to try to pierce the field when everyone's in.

“If you lose Morgan in the first six overs you're in big trouble. It was decided that his skills would be best used in the middle overs.”

The defending champions face New Zealand in Pallekele on Saturday and Broad said it was imperative for the team's top order to fire.

“Losing wickets early is not acceptable, hopefully we can put that right against New Zealand,” Broad said.

“Hopefully we've got four games left in this World Cup. We back the guys at the top of the order, they're all dangerous players.

“Next two games are must-win and that's a good place to be as well. You have clear targets of what you have to achieve.”

Broad was aware of the dangers that New Zealand's big-hitters posed.

“We know the dangers they pose a powerful batting line-up with (Brendon) McCullum, (Martin) Guptill, (Ross) Taylor and (Daniel) Vettori's been a thorn in our side for a long time,” Broad said.